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Here’s Tuesday’s Senate 5:

1. MANDEL IN THE MONEY — Ohio Republican Josh Mandel raised $4.5 million during the third quarter, his biggest tally of the cycle. The gigantic haul comes on the heels of recent polling showing his challenge to first-term Democrat Sherrod Brown picking up steam. Granted, the public polling in the Buckeye State has been scattershot, but even Brown’s campaign acknowledges it’s a low single-digit contest. Mandel is benefiting from Mitt Romney’s rise and an avalanche of outside money — which has now reached $21 million — that’s pummeling Brown. The 34-year-old Iraq veteran’s candidacy is becoming more important to national Republicans as their map to capturing Senate control looks increasingly ominous. With early voting underway in Ohio, the day-to-day campaign carries extra weight.

2. HELLER RECYCLES LEWINSKY CRITICISM — Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) on Tuesday dredged up scathing remarks that Democratic challenger Shelley Berkley made about Bill Clinton in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, just hours before the popular former president stumps with the seven-term congresswoman in Las Vegas. Heller circulated for reporters a 1998 Berkley quote in which she said of Clinton’s extramarital affair: “It’s deplorable, indefensible and the sheer stupidity and recklessness of his actions boggle my mind.’” Heller said Berkley “keeps shifting her position to chase her political ambitions.” But such an attack could backfire. Clinton has rehabilitated his political image in the 14 years since — nearly 70 percent of Americans now approve of the former two-term president, according to a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll. Other Senate candidates are welcoming him on the campaign trail with open arms. Clinton will appear at a Get Out the Vote rally with Democrat Richard Carmona Wednesday at Arizona State University and with Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly in Indianapolis on Friday.

3. THE WAR ON MCCASKILL’S HUSBAND — The hits against Sen. Claire McCaskill’s hubsand have resurfaced in Missouri. Nursing homes owned by her husband, Joseph Shepard, flared up as an issue in her 2004 bid for governor and 2006 Senate race. Now, the Associated Press reports that Shepard’s other businesses have received nearly $40 million in federal subsidies for low-income housing projects since she joined the Senate in early 2007. Shepard earned between $400,000 and $2.6 million in income from those entities during that time period. McCaskill’s GOP challenger, Rep. Todd Akin, called the investments a conflict of interest since McCaskill voted for some of the spending bills that contained the subsidies. But McCaskill’s campaign rejected that premise, and the AP story said there was no evidence the senator personally steered money to her husband’s enterprises. The GOP hopes the profits taint McCaskill’s image as an ethical watchdog, but a Missouri-based Republican consultant said that the attack failed to stick in her prior races because it’s so complicated. “The tracking showed that no one understood it so we pivoted off and went back to saying she would … take your gun away,” quipped the operative.